When I read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, I barely understood it, I got a few points here and there, however, I knew deep down inside me that I hadn’t gotten the real information I needed ‘cos a lot of people I had talked with that had introduced me to the book were excited and always talked about playing the board game….

I managed to play for a few times. And I had really learned a lot from just playing the game. Of course I did not have an immediate enlightenment on the concepts that the game was trying to teach! Neither do I claim that I have understood all the concepts. But before I go about describing what I have learned, it is important that you have a general idea of the game. This may help you to understand what I have learned so far from playing the game….

Cash flow 101 is a board game designed by Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
It aims to teach the players the concepts of investing and building passive income. To start the game, each player has a score sheet to track his passive income and expenses. It is similar to keeping track of financial statements in real life. There are 2 tracks in the game.

The first track is where everyone starts playing. It is known as the rat race track. In the rat race track, the player may be required to spend for vacation. He may also have another child that causes his expenditure to go up. He may lose his job thus no income for a few months. He will face financial worry or difficulties like in real life situations.

Also, the player will encounter opportunity to invest in shares, real estates, businesses and so on. Basically, the player will encounter very real life liked situations that required decisions on investments. He may also encounter a situation where he does not have the cash to invest in a golden opportunity.

In order to get out of the rat race to the second track that is known as the fast track, the player has to learn to invest until his passive income surpasses his expenses. Once he has attained that, he will try to buy his dream or accumulate an additional $50,000 or more monthly cash flow to win the game.

In summary, the game gives the players the chance to experience real life situations even before they have happened. It is like giving them a glimpse of the future of what may happen if they stay in the rat race.
It also provides the players a glimpse of an alternative bright future if they get out of the rat race. This is provided that they learned about cash flow, expenses, investment and building passive income.

That is just an introduction based on my personal experience of playing the game. I really loved playing the game. I hope that you can visual the board game now. Let me share with you what I had learned so far from playing the board game.

Firstly, if I were in the rat race track, I would be just waiting for paycheck after paycheck. My monthly salary would not increase much annually. And it would be like that for the rest of the years to come. In the board game, the rat race track is very short circular track. If each complete cycle were to represent a year, then time really flies fast on the board game. This gave me a glimpse of what my future would be liked in the next 10 years if I remained in the rat race track.

Secondly, if I did not invest in things that generate me passive income, I would take a very long time to clear my mortgage and debts by just saving.
‘Saving is very important!’
But saving alone will not get me out of the rat race….lol!!!… If I want to get out of rat race in real life, then I have to learn to invest and build passive income.

Thirdly, I realized that if I was too greedy in life and over invested beyond my financial means, I could easily go broke due to unexpected expenses or loss of job. Thus, it is important to manage my cash flow carefully in real life.

Lastly, I realized that it is important to save so that I could invest when a golden opportunity came knocking on my door. In the board game, I had a golden chance (Big Opportunity) to invest on something that really gave good returns. But I did not have enough saving, alas; I could understand clearly the difference between being rich and wanting to be rich.

To be rich you have to consistently balance your liabilities against your investments, I had no money to take a life changing opportunity simply because I was oblivious of how I could have before then allowed the little I had to begin to work as against the rainy day.

The cards are carefully before me now thanks to what I could easily describe as the most beautiful game in the world , I am fast on my way to leaving the rat race….